{"id":498,"date":"2014-10-26T21:56:48","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T06:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cms.shelquist.us\/?p=498"},"modified":"2014-10-27T02:10:36","modified_gmt":"2014-10-27T11:10:36","slug":"oct-26-first-time-speaking-in-a-new-congregation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms.shelquist.us\/?p=498","title":{"rendered":"Oct. 26 – First Time Speaking in a new Congregation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n

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I have recently been attending a different local congregation.\u00a0\u00a0 It is Centenary UMC on US Route 220 North in Cumberland.\u00a0 The congregation and I have been in a process of getting to know each other.\u00a0 One of the steps in that process was my delivering the sermon today.\u00a0 I received a lot of favorable comments about the content of my message.\u00a0 More affirming than those comments was the universal invitation that everyone made to me to continue attending the congregation\u2019s worship services.<\/p>\n

The picture of the building reminds me of one of the churches I served in my first full-time appointment.\u00a0 The people also remind me of the members of that congregation because of their friendliness and outgoing nature.\u00a0 Centenary has been diligent in maintaining their building which speaks both to these sense of dedication to stewardship of what they have received from past generations, and their desire to attract new members.\u00a0 Both of these are healthy signs for any congregation!<\/p>\n

I had a bonus today because my colleague and Pastoral Care Department Director attended the service as an expression of support.\u00a0 That is something else I want to comment about for a moment.\u00a0 Colleagues supporting colleagues in any setting is important.\u00a0 We enjoy a lot of that at Western Maryland Health System, which is a very positive part of the organization\u2019s DNA!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I have recently been attending a different local congregation.\u00a0\u00a0 It is Centenary UMC on US Route 220 North in Cumberland.\u00a0 The congregation and I have been in a process of getting to know each other.\u00a0 One of the steps in that process was my delivering the sermon today.\u00a0 I received a lot of favorable … Continue reading Oct. 26 – First Time Speaking in a new Congregation<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.shelquist.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.shelquist.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.shelquist.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.shelquist.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.shelquist.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms.shelquist.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":500,"href":"https:\/\/cms.shelquist.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions\/500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.shelquist.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.shelquist.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.shelquist.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}